The nearer they went to the market-place, which they must cross, the more crowded were the streets.  Every one was going the same way; the throng almost carried the women with it; yet, from the market came, as it were, a contrary torrent of shouts and shrieks from a myriad of human throats.  Dame Joanna was terrified in the press by the uproarious doings in the market, and she would gladly have turned back with the girls, or have made her way through by-streets, but the tide bore her on, and it would have been easier to swim against a swollen mountain stream than to return home.  Thus they soon reached the square, but there they were brought to a standstill in the crush.

The widow’s terrors now increased.  It was dreadful to be kept fast with the young people in such a mob.  Pulcheria clung closely to her, and when she bid Mary take her hand the child, who thoroughly enjoyed the adventure, exclaimed:  “Only look, Mother Joanna, there is our Rustem.  He is taller than any one.”

“If only he were by our side!” sighed the widow.  At this the little girl snatched away her hand, made her way with the nimbleness of a squirrel through the mass of men, and soon had reached the Masdakite.  Rustem had not yet quitted Memphis, for the first caravan, which he and his little wife were to join, was not to start for a few days.  The worthy Persian and Mary were very good friends; as soon as he heard that his benefactress was alarmed he pushed his way to her, with the child, and the widow breathed more freely when he offered to remain near her and protect her.

Meanwhile the yelling and shouting were louder than ever.  Every face, every eye was turned to the Curia, in the evident expectation of something great and strange taking place there.

“What is it?” asked Mary, pulling at Rustem’s coat.  The giant said nothing, but he stooped, and to her delight, a moment later she had her feet on his arms, which he folded across his chest, and was settling herself on his broad shoulder whence she could survey men and things as from a tower.  Joanna laid her hand in some tremor on the child’s little feet, but Mary called down to her:  “Mother—­Pulcheria—­I am quite sure our old Horapollo’s white ass is standing in front of the Curia, and they are putting a garland round the beast’s neck—­a garland of olive.”

At this moment the blare of a tuba rang out from the Senate-house across the square, through the suffocatingly hot, quivering air; a sudden silence fell and spread till, when a man opened his mouth to shout or to speak, a neighbor gave him a shove and bid him hold his tongue.  At this the widow held Mary’s ankles more tightly, asking, while she wiped the drops from her brow: 

“What is going on?” and the child answered quickly, never taking her eyes off the scene: 

“Look, look up at the balcony of the Curia; there stands the chief of the Senate—­Alexander the dyer of purple—­he often used to come to see my grandfather, and grandmother could not bear his wife.  And by his side—­do you not see who the man is close by him?